Heart-Shaped Box, By Joe Hill

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

This should be called "Abused Women and Girls", as they are who this unpleasantly creepy little novel is about. The "hero" is a middle-aged heavy rock star, Jude Coyne, a collector of "death memorabilia" including a snuff movie, who is somewhat deservedly being haunted by another vile character, the ghost of an old man who liked to molest little girls, including his own stepdaughter. Said stepdaughter later killed herself after being dumped by Jude, and now her sister has taken revenge by tricking Jude into buying her stepfather's haunted suit.

There is a genuine sense of menace in the novel, and Hill is a far more competent writer than many in this genre. But the fact that Jude's moment of redemption comes when he finally calls his current girlfriend by her name rather than by the state she comes from, made me reluctant to follow any more of what will doubtless be Hill's long, painful journey to recognising women as human beings in subsequent novels. In short, Hill couldn't make me care about Jude Coyne. But some may.

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